A Conversation with Russell Sawyer

[00:00:00] Halfling: Thanks for tuning in to the Halfling and the Spaceman: Journey's in Active Fandom. We're having great conversations with people that have turned their love of fandom into something creative. We're fans talking to fans. And today's guest is Russell Sawyer, organizer of Moatcon in North Carolina.

[00:00:24] Halfling: He'll be talking about his experience organizing and running a gaming convention. Russell, welcome to the show.

[00:00:31] Russell Sawyer: Hi. Thanks. I appreciate it. 

[00:00:34] Halfling: Glad to have you.

[00:00:35] Russell Sawyer: I love seeing what you're doing, hearing what you're doing.

[00:00:37] Halfling: thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it

[00:00:40] Spaceman: So Russell, why don't you start us off by telling us a little bit about who you are and what your background is.

[00:00:46] Russell Sawyer: Me. I'm nobody, I'm just an old gamer nerd. I didn't have a basement growing up, but oh my God, we played every game there was to be played. You, yourself know, Traveller, Call of Cthulhu. You know, we've known each other for a while, pal.

[00:01:03] Halfling: Love, love the COC by the way. Yeah.

[00:01:06] Spaceman: I still have my third edition Call of Cthulhu book.

[00:01:10] Russell Sawyer: I don't have third edition anymore. I've got six rocking the shelf right now.

[00:01:15] Russell Sawyer: Haven't invested in seven yet,

[00:01:16] Halfling: Oh dang. 

[00:01:19] Russell Sawyer: Me, I've just been a gamer nerd going to playing in apparently organizing gamer conventions since, uh, well, uh, the 80.

[00:01:32] Halfling: okay. Lots of experience there. This is a show about fans and fandom, so, what does the word fan mean to you and what does it mean to be part of Fandom?

[00:01:45] Russell Sawyer: No first fanatic, you know, a fan of something is a diehard follower, an engager in some genre of our nerdy little society. And well, that a lot of them fit in my back pocket; horror, science fiction, fantasy, you name it, every form of media that could be consumed. I've probably played with it a little while, but, still RPGs bring me around, back around to where I started.

[00:02:19] Halfling: Mm-hmm. , well, you actually just kind of answered the second part of the question that I had, which was, what types of fandom do you enjoy? Um, you you men, you know, you mentioned, you mentioned several genres and you sort of have latched onto all those different genres and the types of games that you play.

[00:02:36] Halfling: Is that right?

[00:02:37] Russell Sawyer: without a doubt.

[00:02:38] Halfling: Okay.

[00:02:38] Russell Sawyer: Games, movies. TV. Shows. Comics, novels. All the above.

[00:02:45] Halfling: Okay. All right. Well-rounded, well-rounded nerd here.

[00:02:50] Russell Sawyer: Oh, without a doubt. Without a doubt. 

[00:02:54] Spaceman: Well, 

[00:02:54] Spaceman: Russell, you talked a little bit about organizing gaming events and I know that, uh, most recent event that I went to that was organized by you was Moatcon. That's been a few years back, but talk a little bit about your background, getting events organized and how you got into that specifically.

[00:03:10] Spaceman: And then we can talk about Moatcon a little bit, you know, a little bit more in detail.

[00:03:14] Russell Sawyer: Well, I originally didn't set out to organize and plan a convention. I was just a typical consumer going to cons for the games, for the people, for the people I only see at cons. Uh, met met a whole bunch of people in the interim, but then I started refereeing at various game conventions, you know, If you wanna come run a game or two, you can come into the con for free.

[00:03:45] Russell Sawyer: That got me started free, that's my favorite price to pay

[00:03:49] Halfling: Isn't it everybodys? 

[00:03:52] Russell Sawyer: So that's what got it started. But then you start getting into the minutiae of how a con is put together, how it works, who is who, and what jobs they do. That's where the convention promotion got started was me reffing and helping out. But Moatcon, yeah, that was 2015 and that was the fourth Moatcon back then. Before then Moatcon was a private invitation only convention. I don't know if that answered your question or not. Did it?

[00:04:31] Spaceman: No, it kind of does.

[00:04:32] Russell Sawyer: I kind of got lost in the nostalgia.

[00:04:36] Halfling: I have never heard of an invitation only convention. I mean, maybe I'm just sheltered. I didn't know that was such a thing. 

[00:04:44] Russell Sawyer: No, there are, believe it or not. It originally started out with a group of people that I was only tangentially involved with. I knew a person who knew a person who got invited to the first Moatcon, and it was for people who, width of people really, who, got to play more narrative, indie role playing games.

[00:05:11] Russell Sawyer: That really stuff that didn't get played at the typical game convention, there are certain rules and regulations about gaming tables at most cons, that those kind of games just don't fit. Like you don't do character creation at the table, at a normal, the everyday con. And to me it's never, every day I wish, I wish it was every day the referee brings the characters with them and you picked the one you wanna play.

[00:05:40] Russell Sawyer: But some of these games that were being played at Moatcon, part of the game itself was character creation and created the scenario. It created the game itself. It was all integral to some of these things, but, those types of games kind of break the rules at the table.

[00:06:03] Russell Sawyer: And I've seen some game coordinators rather upset because character creation's going on at their table. 

[00:06:09] Russell Sawyer: What? We don't have time for that. You've got four hours.

[00:06:12] Halfling: Wow.

[00:06:12] Spaceman: Well, certainly not four hours to make a hero character. So

[00:06:17] Russell Sawyer: Yes, exactly. Or. GURPS, oh my god.

[00:06:20] Spaceman: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Now Russell, I've known you since high school. Now remind me that we used to have a hobby shop in the triangle area called Hungates hobbies. And they organized a game day. Were you one of the organizers of that,

[00:06:38] Russell Sawyer: Um, 

[00:06:39] Spaceman: which was sort of a mini con?

[00:06:40] Russell Sawyer: Again, tangential to a lot

[00:06:43] Russell Sawyer: of stuff, uh, at the time, an agreement between myself and Hungates, I'd created the Triangle Area Recreational Game Association, a Gamers Club based out of Hungates. They set us up in some meeting rooms in the basement of Northgate Mall for us to hold game events.

[00:07:08] Russell Sawyer: It was a blast. It was like having a convention every month with people you already know and that game event that you're talking about with Hungates came from that.

[00:07:19] Spaceman: Oh, okay. I remember that dearly because I showed up. I don't know if I actually got to play in any of the games, and it's been many years ago, so my memory is probably completely gone.

[00:07:27] Halfling: Well, we went to at least one.

[00:07:29] Spaceman: you did? Yeah. 

[00:07:30] Spaceman: Was that 

[00:07:31] Halfling: that

[00:07:31] Halfling: was the

[00:07:31] Spaceman: I thought this was, uh, pre 

[00:07:33] Spaceman: halfling, not post 

[00:07:34] Halfling: half. Okay.

[00:07:35] Halfling: No, because I remember very, very succinctly what Russell's talking about. But anyway, sorry, digression. All right. Go 

[00:07:43] Spaceman: Go ahead.

[00:07:43] Spaceman: So, swinging back around the Moatcon, you talked a little bit about how you did this, little private Moatcon first, and you decided to take it public and you talked about having a little bit more indy games. Can you tell us a little bit about what type of events you had at Moatcon, that might have been different from your typical gaming?

[00:08:00] Russell Sawyer: Well, Moatcon four, was again, I got involved with one, two and three because of friends. Of friends of friends. And everyone involved with Moat Con before, the idea was that the moat was around the convention to keep anybody else out a private con. When I took it over and adopted it, my idea was that, well, the moat doesn't keep people out.

[00:08:31] Russell Sawyer: The moat's gonna keep anything that detracts from the fun out. So we went a little more mainstream, a little more common day with what games we played. Beit Dungeons and Dragons, you know, you name it, I had referees there from Call of Cthulhu to a very interesting, fun game called Jade Claw.

[00:08:53] Russell Sawyer: Have you ever heard of it?

[00:08:55] Spaceman: No, never

[00:08:55] Halfling: Mm-hmm. No.

[00:08:57] Russell Sawyer: You play Anthropomorphic Animals in Feudal China?

[00:09:03] Spaceman: Wow. 

[00:09:04] Halfling: Okay.

[00:09:05] Russell Sawyer: Yeah, it sounds like it's out there, but

[00:09:08] Russell Sawyer: I think I've got four copies of the book on my shelf now. We did a lot of more common, more expected, role playing games along with the narrative stuff, Lady Blackbird, Feng Shui.

[00:09:24] Russell Sawyer: But we also had other events too. My own wife, she had one of her best ideas for this was an event called War Stories,

[00:09:33] Spaceman: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:33] Russell Sawyer: and where it was a round table discussion where her idea was every player has that one game. that one night around the table that stuck in your head where the spotlight was on it.

[00:09:51] Russell Sawyer: It's always a fun story cuz we all have those stories

[00:09:55] Russell Sawyer: that one night when, you know, you took out the dragon or you know, but it was first you wanted to do this round robin conversation where people got to tell their stories and then we all voted upon the best and most entertaining tale. So that was the kinda stuff we were doing.

[00:10:19] Russell Sawyer: Moatcon was a charity event and uh, four was the charity

[00:10:25] Halfling: uh,

[00:10:26] Russell Sawyer: And, it really was a lot more fun than I think I've had, even just attending conventions for me running it. One of the most stressful events, but also one of the most fun and rewarding.

[00:10:41] Spaceman: All right. Can you tell us a little bit about the charity?

[00:10:44] Russell Sawyer: Oh, sure. Be happy to. Charity's name was Wags for Tags. Uh, gentleman who ran it was a veteran, and he suffered from PTSD and his organization paired the other soldiers, veterans with P T S D, with shelter dogs to give the dogs a home, but also give the soldiers something to care about, something to focus on other than his problems. And I think he has now has shut it down. This was back in 2015, so it's been several years. But since we ran the convention at a National Guard Armory, it kind of fell in with the theme. So, um, and, and they did, they did really good work. They did really fantastic work.

[00:11:39] Spaceman: Okay. Okay.

[00:11:41] Russell Sawyer: My own dog came from Wags for Tags,

[00:11:45] Spaceman: Well that's great. That's great. So we've talked a little bit about events. We've talked about the convention, we talked about the charity. How many staff or volunteers did you have helping you with the convention?

[00:11:56] Russell Sawyer: uh, a handful. Most of them came from my own family or my own gaming gamer group. It was a shoestring budget but my own players and family and my wife, my daughter, everybody chipped in and any friend I could, cajole, you know, bribe into helping out, I certainly did. In that way everybody kind of had a stake in how things went.

[00:12:28] Halfling: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:30] Spaceman: That's great. I'm glad that you got so much support from your friends and family cause it was a big endeavor.

[00:12:36] Halfling: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:38] Russell Sawyer: We had the original Moatcon original attendees, the guys that set up the private convention, they came and, you know, they wanted a more private convention. They came in and jumped in because you know what guys, you know, your names are all on this too.

[00:12:58] Spaceman: All right, well over to you, Halfling.

[00:13:00] Halfling: Well, I was gonna ask if you had, and I think you already mentioned this earlier, you've had experience, not just attending other conventions, but helping with other conventions. Right. 

[00:13:10] Russell Sawyer: Right? Some, most of the time I was ref, but I had done security at conventions. I was the gopher that kept the cons, suite stocked and, you know, sort of things like that. Never, such a big role as I was jumping into,

[00:13:26] Halfling: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Well, do you have a favorite convention and you can't say Moatcon

[00:13:35] Russell Sawyer: oh, well, um,

[00:13:37] Halfling: do you, do you have a favorite convention that you've, you

[00:13:40] Russell Sawyer: then if I can't say a Moatcon, I'm gonna say two. I've gotta break it up into two different conventions

[00:13:46] Spaceman: All.

[00:13:47] Russell Sawyer: Now, one StellarCon in Greensboro from the eighties. Y'all remember that one?

[00:13:54] Russell Sawyer: I know you 

[00:13:54] Halfling: Oh yeah. 

[00:13:55] Spaceman: Oh yeah.

[00:13:55] Russell Sawyer: That's one of the biggest fandom cons in North Carolina at the time. I think all of us spent a lot more money and time than we probably should have back at Stellar Con.

[00:14:09] Spaceman: Oh yeah,

[00:14:11] Russell Sawyer: And that one's a fandom con. So you got to meet the authors and the actors and, you know, dress up in, in your cosplay. That wasn't really cosplay at the time cuz it wasn't the name for that. It was just people that dressed up in silly costumes.

[00:14:27] Spaceman: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:14:30] Russell Sawyer: And my second choice would have to be Mace, mid-Atlantic Convention Enterprise. I think, MACE has ended now, but it was, um, started, it came outta the same group of people that Stellar Con back at U N C G went from, became Hexacon and Mace was strictly gaming. You're there for the whole weekend gaming schedule the entire time.

[00:14:59] Russell Sawyer: Unfortunately the guy who was doing the con organizing, he unfortunately passed away, Jeff Smith and he was a great help for me, a mentor in setting up and running a convention of my own when I went to start Moatcon. Sadly, he's no longer with us.

[00:15:19] Spaceman: Right. I remember hearing that they were doing a Jeff Con this year in his honor that this past

[00:15:24] Spaceman: year Yeah, 

[00:15:24] Spaceman: Not this upcoming year, last

[00:15:26] Russell Sawyer: yeah. They did. It went well. It went really well. Like it almost was another mace, except everyone knew that there was a somber meaning behind it all.

[00:15:37] Halfling: Yeah. Well,

[00:15:38] Spaceman: Yeah. For many years, stellar Con kept the light of fandom on, in North Carolina during the dark years before the M C U. So

[00:15:50] Spaceman: before D&D five, and before the M C U, we had StellarCon.

[00:15:54] Russell Sawyer: You know, that's a good, that's, I'm gonna ask a question now. You're interviewing me. Well, I'm gonna interview you a little bit.

[00:16:00] Spaceman: that's fine.

[00:16:02] Russell Sawyer: what do you think of, I didn't get to talk to you when this happened. What do you think of 5e?

[00:16:07] Spaceman: You know, the last D&D I played was 3.0, not even 3.5. We had a campaign that lasted, uh, two game sessions, maybe 

[00:16:17] Halfling: three

[00:16:18] Halfling: Yeah. 

[00:16:20] Halfling: uh, 

[00:16:22] Spaceman: We still have our first edition AD&D books, though, I don't have a complete set, but, I've got two copies of the Unearthed Archana and No Monster Manual

[00:16:31] Russell Sawyer: Oh,

[00:16:32] Halfling: We have heard good things about Fifth Edition though. If the right circumstance came along, we might be open to trying it anyway.

[00:16:40] Russell Sawyer: Well, there's people we, you and I both know and love back dungeon Masters way long ago, back when we were all young that are still running, you know, Version AD&D one point Paul

[00:16:55] Spaceman: Yeah, I remember

[00:16:59] Spaceman: We did a 

[00:17:00] Russell Sawyer: He's still running that.

[00:17:01] Spaceman: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, if you got something that ain't broke, don't fix it.

[00:17:06] Russell Sawyer: No need to fix

[00:17:07] Spaceman: That's exactly right.

[00:17:08] Russell Sawyer: I tried to drag him into fifth Edition. He dug his heels in and, nah, I'm happy with this. Okay, come on, we'll go play this. 

[00:17:17] Russell Sawyer: And 

[00:17:18] Spaceman: I still, I still love, original Black book Traveler. So, you know,

[00:17:23] Russell Sawyer: no, you get me started my love on that.

[00:17:26] Spaceman: I know that's one of the things we have in common.

[00:17:29] Russell Sawyer: It is, it is indeed. In fact, Moatcon. Now back to that briefly, my program for Moatcon, I printed it up and distributed it in the size and format of a little black book from travel.

[00:17:47] Spaceman: I remember

[00:17:47] Halfling: Nice. homage. 

[00:17:49] Spaceman: Nice

[00:17:49] Spaceman: Homage. Yeah.

[00:17:51] Russell Sawyer: And at that convention I ran a by invitation only, my nod to the old guys at Moatcon by invitation only, a Traveller session for those attendees.

[00:18:05] Spaceman: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:06] Russell Sawyer: So, um, but yeah, I don't know where we're going cuz I've lost track of what question we were on. But, you know,

[00:18:17] Spaceman: Well, you know, we'll know when we get there.

[00:18:19] Russell Sawyer: interview and more of a conversation with all friends.

[00:18:22] Spaceman: Exactly.

[00:18:23] Halfling: Well, that's, that's really what it is.

[00:18:25] Spaceman: Well, we have two kinds of people on the show. We have old friends and we have new friends, and we have friends that we haven't even met yet. So that's three kinds.

[00:18:32] Russell Sawyer: Three. Yeah.

[00:18:33] Halfling: there you go.

[00:18:34] Spaceman: So going on. In your life as a fan or as an organizer, or as a gamer, who is the most interesting person you've met? Oh, And who would you like to meet that you haven't met?

[00:18:50] Russell Sawyer: Yeah. Um, well, the interesting person I've met, that one's tough. Back in the old Stellar Con days, I had a long, by my standard long 15 minute conversation with Walter Koenig.

[00:19:07] Halfling: Oh my goodness. Wow.

[00:19:09] Russell Sawyer: Yeah. And, and, and, uh,

[00:19:13] Spaceman: You got the talk with Bester from Babylon five?

[00:19:16] Russell Sawyer: Uh, before Bab five. yeah, yeah. That guy that was on Bab-5. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Him. Um, and then at a convention bar, I had a sit down moment buying each other beers with Doug Bradley,

[00:19:32] Halfling: Wow. Okay.

[00:19:34] Russell Sawyer: Pinhead.

[00:19:35] Halfling: Nice, nice.

[00:19:37] Russell Sawyer: Those are probably the two that stick out the most. 

[00:19:41] Russell Sawyer: Who would I like to meet? Ooh, that one's tough. Because they're so few right now that are as iconic as the guys from our youth.

[00:19:52] Spaceman: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:53] Russell Sawyer: Um, I have some serious questions I need to ask of George Lucas.

[00:19:58] Spaceman: I

[00:19:58] Halfling: don't we all, don't we all.

[00:20:02] Russell Sawyer: yeah. But, and very little lives is like, well, how did the Millennium Falcon move? Or any little piddly questions like that. Decisions you made. George, can we discuss this? Um, so maybe him, but that might not be as fun as Walter Koenig,

[00:20:21] Spaceman: Yeah. It sounds like we both have our own Babylon five stories. You said that you met Koenig before Babylon five. So at the time he was still a Chekov to everybody. But I had an actually opportunity to have drinks with Jerry Doyle at Origins one year, , which was interesting.

[00:20:36] Spaceman: I was scared outta my wits and didn't say a word.

[00:20:41] Russell Sawyer: Uh, now it's talking about scared. I actually played in a game written by Timothy Zahn and Tim was playing, I'm sorry, Mr. Zahn was 

[00:20:53] Russell Sawyer: playing, ambassador Thrawn in that game.

[00:20:57] Spaceman: Oh, wow. Okay. Oh,

[00:20:59] Halfling: my goodness.

[00:21:00] Russell Sawyer: So, 

[00:21:01] Russell Sawyer: That was a lot of fun and he's a pretty good player, especially since it's his 

[00:21:06] Russell Sawyer: character.

[00:21:06] Spaceman: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:07] Halfling: Yeah. Yeah. Makes perfect sense. Yeah, that time that the spaceman met, Jerry Doyle, was the one time he was left speechless. I've never known him to be speechless otherwise, but

[00:21:19] Spaceman: I've always got something to say.

[00:21:20] Spaceman: say 

[00:21:21] Russell Sawyer: I've neveer never seen Roger's speechless either.

[00:21:24] Halfling: no.

[00:21:26] Halfling: Okay. So Russell, I wanted to ask you, because one of the things that we wanna do with this show is kind of give our listeners insights into the creator's journey, how they go from point A to point B. How do you go from being just a fan to actively, creating or organizing in your case.

[00:21:46] Halfling: So what made you actually finally decide to run the convention? I don't think we have heard that. What sparked that in you?

[00:21:57] Russell Sawyer: Oh wow. Good question by the way. 

[00:22:00] Halfling: I try

[00:22:02] Russell Sawyer: you succeeded. Way to go. That's one that I needed to think about for a moment. Mostly what started it was, well, every convention that I loved, was either gone or moved west. I mean, we had conventions in Greensboro, Durham, you know, central North Carolina and everything was moving further West Charlotte, Asheville, and I'm in Central North Carolina.

[00:22:35] Halfling: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:36] Russell Sawyer: And what happened to around here? What happened to our cons?

[00:22:42] Halfling: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:43] Russell Sawyer: And so the idea was to recreate or make a new convention for Central North Carolina. Moatcon was billed as central North Carolina's premier gaming convent. and that's where we started that, that was the tagline.

[00:23:04] Russell Sawyer: But mostly because I'm telling younger players and people I meet at various game stores. Guys, you gotta get to a convention. You think this is fun. Wait until you can play stuff you've never even heard of for the first time with somebody who knows the game already. Your eyes will be opened.

[00:23:27] Russell Sawyer: And they weren't just people I was meeting, hadn't been able to have that experience. And, it looked like I was just gonna have to make it for them. So that was the impetus behind my foray

[00:23:45] Russell Sawyer: into Moatcon yeah, 

[00:23:47] Russell Sawyer: when I dipped my foot into it,

[00:23:49] Halfling: Okay. You saw a need and a niche that needed to be refilled, so to speak.

[00:23:56] Russell Sawyer: an itch to be filled. An itch to be scratched.

[00:23:59] Halfling: Hmm. Okay.

[00:24:00] Spaceman: All right. Russell's one thing I wanted to give you a shout out for about Moatcon. We like to acknowledge when people do things well, and one of the things that I saw at Moatcon that I don't think I've ever seen anywhere else that you guys just knocked outta the park was how you had a concierge service to get people into games.

[00:24:19] Spaceman: You would have somebody meet them at the door, ask them what their interest was, and then try to hook them up with a game that most closely matched their interest and I was amazingly impressed with that, and I'm surprised that more conventions don't make something like that part of their routine operating procedure.

[00:24:38] Russell Sawyer: Thank you, that was born out of the letting people get into stuff they've never done before. Introducing them to something they haven't played, which was kind of the initial. Point even before Moatcon, before I got involved was playing stuff that doesn't get played at standard convention. So that's, that was our corner. Thank you.

[00:25:04] Spaceman: Well, it was amazingly well done.

[00:25:06] Halfling: And I think the idea behind that sort of strengthens one of the things that we try to focus on, which is a sense of community. So you have people that you know, that are willing to chauffeur people or talk to people and get them engaged because sometimes when people go to a convention for the first time, they're intimidated.

[00:25:29] Halfling: They don't know how to handle themselves

[00:25:30] Spaceman: It can be very intimidating here.

[00:25:32] Halfling: Yeah. And so to have that is, you know, I echo what Roger said, it's just a wonderful thing. So it's great and I think, that's a great step to help promote and create community, which is one of the things that we're about.

[00:25:46] Russell Sawyer: The most I'd seen for any other convention. That was close to what we did with that was, I would see the game coordinator trying to help fill in empty spots in somebody's table. A game only has two players and the referee needs six. He'll go out and find and wrangle people into that table.

[00:26:08] Russell Sawyer: But I've wanted to make it more tailored to the people, to the player, not to what the referee needed, what the player wanted.

[00:26:18] Spaceman: The staff seem to really understand the different game systems that were being run. And that was one of the things that impressed me is that everybody I interacted with, they might not have been, super familiar with the rules, but they understood, what the game system was like, what it was about, how lightweight it was, how rules heavy it was.

[00:26:37] Spaceman: So yeah, again, excellent job. Excellent.

[00:26:41] Russell Sawyer: thank you.

[00:26:42] Russell Sawyer: It means a lot coming from you.

[00:26:46] Spaceman: Well, we want to talk a little bit more at length about how we can help the folks coming along. There might be people out there who've been to a few conventions and they're thinking about doing their own convention, and what would you tell them based on your experience, other than runaway screaming.

[00:27:04] Russell Sawyer: Well, that's probably to be the first instinct is, , don't do it unless your heart's really in it, unless you really are passionate about it. Cause it's probably the most stressful, event I've ever done, but also one of the most rewarding, Again, when it, when you're the guy setting it up, or gal for that matter

[00:27:30] Spaceman: Or, general non-aligned person 

[00:27:31] Halfling: Thank you,

[00:27:32] Russell Sawyer: in case the halfling wants to, step into this, but the shallow end of the pool

[00:27:38] Halfling: Funny

[00:27:41] Russell Sawyer: But don't go into it thinking this is gonna be a cakewalk, it's gonna take every bit of your resolve, but when you're done, you're gonna look back and go, this was great. Or, we have stuff to learn. And for me it was a huge winning experience.

[00:28:02] Halfling: Do you have recommendations on how somebody who's made that decision gets started? What do you do to get started organizing a convention?

[00:28:11] Russell Sawyer: That one. Um, talk to someone who's doing it. Get every tip you can. Oh, location, location, location. Everybody I talked to about running a convention, I found out there's a reason why there's no more Central North Carolina conventions. One is the economy. If you want to put on an event, there's gonna be money involved.

[00:28:39] Spaceman: Absolutely. 

[00:28:40] Halfling: Sure.

[00:28:42] Russell Sawyer: Moatcon was funded through a Kickstarter and my wallet.

[00:28:48] Halfling: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:50] Russell Sawyer: So if you're not willing to put some of yourself into it, get some skin in the game, some blood, sweat, and tears, you're going into it halfhearted and don't. And if you're going into it thinking you're gonna make money, you're in it for the wrong reason.

[00:29:06] Spaceman: And you're deceiving 

[00:29:07] Spaceman: yourself, generally speaking,

[00:29:09] Russell Sawyer: You're deluding yourself.

[00:29:11] Spaceman: right,

[00:29:11] Halfling: Absolutely. 

[00:29:12] Spaceman: right. 

[00:29:13] Spaceman: No, when we did, Con-Spiracy back in 1991, we put up the money for the deposit for the hotel. 

[00:29:21] Halfling: Yeah, we took out a loan. 

[00:29:22] Spaceman: Yeah, we took out a loan and

[00:29:23] Halfling: Yeah. We sweated every minute of it.

[00:29:26] Spaceman: every single minute of 

[00:29:27] Halfling: it

[00:29:27] Halfling: till we, till we paid it back.

[00:29:30] Spaceman: And the only reason there wasn't a second one was because, I had planned to make a deposit on the hotel at the convention.

[00:29:36] Spaceman: They were willing to sign a contract with me then, but somebody talked me outta doing it and then when I came back to 'em a few weeks later, they had doubled the price.

[00:29:45] Russell Sawyer: Oh,

[00:29:45] Spaceman: So, yeah. Yeah. You know, the cost of hotel space is not cheap.

[00:29:49] Russell Sawyer: which is exactly why we did Moatcon four at a National Guard

[00:29:54] Halfling: Mm-hmm. , right? Mm-hmm.

[00:29:56] Spaceman: Not the ideal space, but it worked.

[00:29:58] Russell Sawyer: Not the ideal space. It was big and loud even though we tried to space the tables far apart from each other. Which is another reason for guiding people around a gigantic room full of tables. You know, let's help 'em find what they're looking for. 

[00:30:14] Spaceman: As somebody who is big and loud, I kind of respect that.

[00:30:20] Russell Sawyer: funny, you have not lost your sense of humor. My old friend. Yeah, no, Moatcon was a lot of fun. I would do it again if money was not involved in it. We started the wheels rolling for a Moatcon five, and it got exactly the same amount of Kickstarter support as four.

[00:30:45] Halfling: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:47] Russell Sawyer: But then my own spouse reminded me that if doing these conventions was gonna put us in the poor house, I was gonna be seeing her in divorce court.

[00:30:56] Halfling: Mm. 

[00:30:58] Spaceman: You're, not the first fan organizer who has discovered that.

[00:31:01] Halfling: I hate to say it, but it's kind of true. I mean, you know,

[00:31:06] Halfling: So are there things that you know now that you wish you had known back then?

[00:31:14] Russell Sawyer: Oh, talk to your local game clubs or meetups. They can help you more than you think. That's where you're gonna find your GMs. That's where you're gonna find your players. That's where you're gonna find all your connections for vendors and that's where a lot of your biggest help is gonna come from.

[00:31:38] Russell Sawyer: And, that the Raleigh game groups and meetup were probably the biggest assets I had.

[00:31:44] Halfling: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:45] Spaceman: So Russell, having been through the experience, what are the things that you think make a convention succeed or fail? What do you think are the make or break points? For a convention.

[00:31:55] Russell Sawyer: Make or break points. Y'all just full of good questions today. I think, part of it is expectation. Gamers, especially game con attendees, come into this with some preconceived notions and expectations.

[00:32:11] Spaceman: Mm-hmm.

[00:32:11] Russell Sawyer: If you don't at least come close to meeting them or at least. Offer something alternative to their expectation. You're, that's gonna break you right there. MoatCon's, big room, full of tables. That was a big no-no. Made a lot of noise. But, the fact that we had so many different games going on and we did so much as we could anyway, to make things amenable to everybody. That made up for a lot of the feedback I got after the convention was, oh, this really should have been in a hotel. Well, gang, do you want to pay double ticket price? Because that's what we're gonna have to do for a hotel.

[00:33:03] Russell Sawyer: But. Try to give people a variety, but there are still standards.

[00:33:10] Spaceman: Mm-hmm.

[00:33:11] Russell Sawyer: Well, I think if you can come close to those, at least close, show 'em you're trying, you'll be all right.

[00:33:19] Spaceman: Good deal. Now, sort of an odd tangent to this, and I just wanted this sort of an opinion. Do you think the corporatification of particularly Dungeons and Dragons in the post Hasbro world has negatively impacted gaming as a hobby at the table level and local groups and communities? 

[00:33:41] Russell Sawyer: This answer is not gonna be very good for your podcast.

[00:33:45] Spaceman: Okay.

[00:33:47] Russell Sawyer: No,

[00:33:47] Spaceman: No.

[00:33:49] Russell Sawyer: Hasbro and Wizards can do whatever they want to do. They can release new versions of the O G L and try to restrict people all that they want to. But at the home group table level, that's not gonna matter. People are still gonna play, new people are gonna get brought into the hobby.

[00:34:13] Russell Sawyer: Frankly, there's nothing they can do. The books are out there as we all know. I still have my AD&D first edition books. I'm looking at my shelf now. I've got my AD&D books right next to my 5e books. And no matter what they do, that's not gonna change. So on the corporate level, They're irrelevant,

[00:34:39] Halfling: Yeah, we heard something similar by a YouTuber that, was talking about this very subject, and she sort of said the same thing. She said, when it comes right down to it and people sit their butts in the seats they're gonna play what they're gonna play. And you've got the people who have the books.

[00:34:57] Halfling: And, we came from that situation where we shared books if we needed to. Somebody didn't have a book, you borrow it. I think you're completely right about that. I think it's gonna continue and I think, like you said, up at the corporate level, it's not really gonna matter.

[00:35:11] Halfling: That's my opinion too. For what it's worth. 

[00:35:14] Russell Sawyer: I think. their corporatization is just gonna hurt the corporation.

[00:35:18] Spaceman: Mm. Okay. Okay. Yeah, we've kind of been disconnected from the tabletop community for a while, so we wanted to get somebody's opinion whose feet were on the ground.

[00:35:29] Halfling: Mm-hmm. . 

[00:35:30] Russell Sawyer: Well, thank you. I wouldn't consider myself someone to speak for everyone, but

[00:35:35] Spaceman: no, no. I was gonna say you're our sample size of one.

[00:35:38] Halfling: Yeah, there you go.

[00:35:40] Russell Sawyer: well being now my age and my size, I'm probably one and a half.

[00:35:47] Halfling: You 

[00:35:47] Spaceman: watch out. We're gonna start measuring you in Game Buddha units. 

[00:35:51] Russell Sawyer: Ooh. Actually, dude, man, you've shrunk a lot now height, you're about the same, but you're about half the man you used to be.

[00:36:01] Spaceman: I am, I'm now one half Game Buddha unit. But anyway, that's a side issue.

[00:36:09] Spaceman: So Russell going back in time, if you could do one thing and only one thing different from remote con four, what would it be?

[00:36:17] Russell Sawyer: One thing for Moatcon. Four.

[00:36:19] Spaceman: Yep,

[00:36:19] Russell Sawyer: Wow. Uh, you're gonna have a pause to edit out here. I gotta think about that one

[00:36:23] Spaceman: that's fine. Take your

[00:36:24] Spaceman: time. 

[00:36:27] Russell Sawyer: what I would do differently? What could make things better? Oh, I know what I would do better. Okay. Telling a quick story. Who knew that there were two National Guard armories in Youngsville, North Carolina?

[00:36:44] Halfling: Oh, I

[00:36:45] Spaceman: didn't even know there was one

[00:36:46] Halfling: No.

[00:36:46] Russell Sawyer: Me either and I started a convention in one of them and telling everybody to go to the National Guard Armory in Youngsville.

[00:36:54] Halfling: Oh.

[00:36:55] Russell Sawyer: I'm getting phone calls and left and right emails going, we're here at the Armory. Where's the convention?

[00:37:03] Halfling: Oh,

[00:37:04] Russell Sawyer: So do a little bit more research about your venue and your plan.

[00:37:10] Spaceman: Okay. Okay. Okay.

[00:37:12] Russell Sawyer: We solved it, solved it in record time and everyone made it to the con. But that was a fumble.

[00:37:22] Spaceman: I remember being out front, when y'all were fielding calls about it, so, yeah.

[00:37:29] Halfling: Wow. Wow. That's kind of a major faux pas there though, but like you said, got it worked out. Record time, and people got there, so that's a good thing.

[00:37:38] Spaceman: One thing I regret about Moatcon has nothing to do with Moatcon. I just regret that there weren't cell phone cameras back then because I would've loved to have taken some pictures, coming to the convention, back in 2015 I had a cell phone, but it was a brick

[00:37:56] Halfling: Well that's one of the things that we wanna do with the podcast is go to these conventions and not initially take pictures or we may take some pictures, but more of a interview. The man on the street kind of thing at the convention. And I even thought about putting a table out with a little sign that said, in a microphone saying, the Halfling and the spaceman talk to us and just have people come up and just start talking about, their opinion about the convention

[00:38:23] Halfling: they're having a good time or what they wanna do.

[00:38:25] Halfling: You know,

[00:38:26] Spaceman: Or how they got started doing what they're

[00:38:28] Halfling: Yeah. Yeah. So that's in the pipeline, so we'll see how that works out.

[00:38:33] Russell Sawyer: set up outside of a game room and get out? What have you Just finished playing.

[00:38:38] Spaceman: That's a good idea. That's a good idea. All right. Halfling over to you.

[00:38:43] Halfling: I was just gonna ask, since we're talking about this, I think you sort of teased us at the beginning with project or projects in the works. Can you tell us anything,

[00:38:54] Russell Sawyer: Okay. All right, so we've known each other a while.

[00:38:58] Halfling: just a, just, 

[00:38:59] Russell Sawyer: just a couple of weeks. Yeah. Yeah. But my first, okay, second passion after RPGs, was the idea of publishing,

[00:39:12] Spaceman: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:14] Russell Sawyer: um, you know, that's always been a familiar pastime

[00:39:18] Russell Sawyer: for me and you,

[00:39:20] Spaceman: us. Yeah.

[00:39:22] Russell Sawyer: you, I meant collectively

[00:39:23] Spaceman: Right.

[00:39:25] Russell Sawyer: Well after Moatcon, I was given a license to write for a game system called, big damn sci-fi.

[00:39:37] Spaceman: Oh, wow. Okay.

[00:39:38] Halfling: That 

[00:39:39] Russell Sawyer: And, then the idea with that was you don't play humans. In fact, you start off creating, what kind of alien are you?

[00:39:50] Halfling: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:51] Russell Sawyer: The very fun little game. But I've always wanted to put my mark in some way on this hobby,

[00:40:00] Halfling: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:01] Russell Sawyer: on this pastime, which is occupied so much of my life. 

[00:40:05] Spaceman: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:06] Russell Sawyer: back in 88, back in familiar territory

[00:40:10] Halfling: Mm-hmm. ,,,right.

[00:40:11] Russell Sawyer: gang.

[00:40:12] Russell Sawyer: There was a quaint little game that got published by the name of Justifiers.

[00:40:19] Russell Sawyer: Have you seen 

[00:40:20] Spaceman: remember it. Yeah.

[00:40:21] Russell Sawyer: Well, I came into that game late, but I now have all of the books on my shelf. There's another one of those little black book, well, not little black, but little book games, and. Well, I hated that nothing more became of it. I wanted more. I was hungry. And, I always wanted, when I started writing and wanting to publish, and I wanted to write for that game because it was a little bit Traveller, a little bit Adventurer, you know? Just a lot of stuff was potentially rolled into it, especially with the setting.

[00:41:00] Russell Sawyer: And I always felt like it suffered from an unfortunate game mechanic, boring percentiles. Well just recently it fell into my lap, the opportunity to rewrite Justifiers and republish it

[00:41:20] Halfling: Wow. That's,

[00:41:22] Russell Sawyer: where, the original author, Gideon, is the pseudonym he published under,

[00:41:27] Halfling: mm-hmm.

[00:41:28] Russell Sawyer: passed away about the same time as I was running Moatcon.

[00:41:32] Spaceman: Oh,

[00:41:33] Russell Sawyer: Uh, unfortunately,

[00:41:35] Russell Sawyer: But not long ago, been in contact with his daughter who gave me the family and her personal blessing. 

[00:41:44] Halfling: Mm-hmm. 

[00:41:45] Russell Sawyer: to republish it. So that's what I'm working on now.

[00:41:51] Halfling: Okay.

[00:41:52] Spaceman: well, congratulations.

[00:41:54] Halfling: exciting. That's wonderful.

[00:41:56] Spaceman: That is exciting.

[00:41:58] Russell Sawyer: And, we're coming along. We're writing, we've had our second play test with the mechanics and the setting is pretty much Gideon's creation to begin with.

[00:42:11] Russell Sawyer: I've added and a little bit here and there, taken away a little bit here and there, but it's still largely his original creation. I've made the world a little bit more dystopian, because that's what I like. I don't think anything fun comes from a boring, everything is great setting.

[00:42:33] Spaceman: and that's the thing that's popular with all the kids these days.

[00:42:36] Russell Sawyer: Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. Well, that's what I'm working on. Hopefully we'll have it out soon. She had one stipulation to giving me, again, the family's blessing was that they had to send her a book.

[00:42:50] Spaceman: Oh, okay. Well,

[00:42:51] Halfling: Oh, 

[00:42:52] Halfling: darn. I mean, you know, that's, that's a hardship. That's like

[00:42:56] Russell Sawyer: Yeah. Oh my goodness.

[00:42:58] Russell Sawyer: Yeah. You, you're gonna gimme Clark Blanche to rewrite your father's work. Uh, you know, in the cost of me sending you a book, just want one.

[00:43:09] Halfling: yeah. 

[00:43:10] Halfling: Well, it sounds like the main focus of your reworking this, or rewriting, however you wanna call it, it was more of the mechanics, cuz you, you said you were unhappy with the mechanics.

[00:43:23] Russell Sawyer: I was rather as originally not, but as I grew as a gamer and experienced different games and different game types, the more that I felt like Justifiers suffered from the mechanic, and I've won new generations of gamers to experience what Gideon wrote, what he created.

[00:43:50] Spaceman: And that, that is one of the things that I think that is being missed is there's a lot of really great stuff in the early days of tabletop RPGs that have just been forgotten and Justifiers being one of them. The other game I'd like to see make it come back as fringe worthy. Have you ever seen that one

[00:44:09] Russell Sawyer: Yes, indeed. There are a lot that could stand revitalization and that one too, would love to see that come back in. I would love to see, uh, I hate Roger, you're gonna shake your head and you're gonna be excited to hear it, but I want, I wanna resurgence of Traveller, and I don't necessarily mean mongoose, but I do love the work that John Watts is doing.

[00:44:35] Spaceman: Oh yeah. John is a friend of the show, so

[00:44:37] Halfling: Yeah.

[00:44:38] Russell Sawyer: He was particular, uh, Another mentor advisor for Moatcon.

[00:44:45] Halfling: Oh, okay. Okay.

[00:44:47] Russell Sawyer: um, I leaned on him quite a lot, him and Jeff Smith from Mace. They both gave me a lot of good advice.

[00:44:56] Halfling: So tangentially related, actually pretty closely related. We're talking about bringing new players into the hobby of role world play. Do you think that's pretty much the way to do it? Is updating some of these older systems? Like you're talking about reworking justified and some of these other things like John Watts, what he's doing.

[00:45:19] Halfling: Or do you think that's pretty much the thing? Or do you see other things that could help bring younger people into the hobby?

[00:45:28] Russell Sawyer: Well, I think role playing itself has suffered a bit from MCU syndrome. 

[00:45:34] Halfling: Hmm.

[00:45:36] Russell Sawyer: Um, now other media, flashy movie, tv, internet, media. It's trying to displace the theater of the mind that originally roleplaying. That's where it was all shown, some descriptions and maybe a figure or a quick drawn map was one thing, but the real action for, from role playing happened in the players' minds

[00:46:09] Halfling: Called Imagination

[00:46:11] Russell Sawyer: exactly.

[00:46:14] Spaceman: That leads me to another question that do you play

[00:46:19] Russell Sawyer: but with 

[00:46:19] Russell Sawyer: assistant interview after all.

[00:46:20] Spaceman: Yeah. Do you play with minis or do you play without minis? 

[00:46:24] Russell Sawyer: Yes. Depends on the game. It depends on what the players are prepared for. It depends on what kind of game it is. If it's highly simulationist, then we need figures and maps to count off and measure off distances and how far can I run? Or what's the range to that adversary, simulationist games need that and narrative games lean more into theater than mind. So I hope that answered 

[00:47:02] Spaceman: it does.

[00:47:03] Halfling: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:47:05] Russell Sawyer: Right now I don't have a group playing. I'm not running anything cuz I'm focusing on writing

[00:47:12] Halfling: Right.

[00:47:14] Spaceman: and that has gotta take a ton of 

[00:47:16] Halfling: Yeah. 

[00:47:18] Russell Sawyer: every day.

[00:47:20] Halfling: Do you have a goal for yourself of how much you're gonna write it each day?

[00:47:25] Russell Sawyer: I try to put in, well, not so much a hard goal, it's to write something on this project every

[00:47:36] Halfling: Mm-hmm. 

[00:47:38] Russell Sawyer: I don't care if it's a paragraph, I don't care if it's just jotting down a note for some idea I had. I would love to put more down with that. But I've had those days where schedules just don't work and I just have to jot down a note, Hey, remember to change this in the mechanics.

[00:47:58] Russell Sawyer: But my goal is before mid-year, this book is gonna be going to press one way or the other. 

[00:48:06] Halfling: That'd be awesome.

[00:48:08] Spaceman: Would be, 

[00:48:08] Halfling: we'd 

[00:48:09] Halfling: love 

[00:48:09] Halfling: to see it. Yeah. Absolutely. Wish you all the best with it. For sure. 

[00:48:13] Russell Sawyer: You know what? I need art. So if you know any good artists, send them my way.

[00:48:20] Halfling: Well it depends on what kind of style you looking for.

[00:48:23] Russell Sawyer: Comic book,

[00:48:26] Spaceman: we'll see what we 

[00:48:26] Halfling: can We'll see what we can do.

[00:48:28] Russell Sawyer: black black and white, and line drawing, pen and ink. I don't need a lot of color. It's just to get the idea across what the players can expect and to inspire their own imagination.

[00:48:41] Halfling: Sounds good. Like I said, we'll see what we can do for you. I think it's gonna about wrap that up for us and we really do appreciate you talking with us today. It's been great catching up and just hearing, your thoughts and your experiences with organizing, running the convention.

[00:48:58] Halfling: And, I think people will be interested to know that it's not all just fun and games. You know that there's a lot of work into it, a lot of challenges. And you have to be prepared to face that reality. I think one thing you touched on, I'm circling back, but one thing you did touch on was the fact that you used, not used literally, but you relied on, help from people that you were gaming with, people that had run the convention beforehand.

[00:49:28] Halfling: You had a couple of other people that were acting as mentors and helping, so you had that support there, which is I think, crucial because we ran Con-Spiracy and we could not have done it without all the support that we got. Cuz it takes a lot.

[00:49:44] Halfling: Yeah, it takes a lot. 

[00:49:45] Spaceman: takes a village to raise a con.

[00:49:48] Russell Sawyer: Indeed, indeed no person is an island, and if you try to do it alone, it's gonna be a catastrophe no matter what.

[00:49:56] Halfling: Yeah. And it goes back to that whole again, sense of community. You know, you're coming together for a common purpose and to enjoy the same type of thing and to hopefully be able to help each other in some fashion.

[00:50:11] Spaceman: Yeah, we have a strict policy around here. Everybody is welcome with the halfling and spaceman. Just don't be a jerk, and I think that's the truth about most of the people in the general fandom or gaming community. As long as you're not a jerk, we're more than happy to help you out.

[00:50:26] Spaceman: Roll up our sleeves, get it done, or at least give you advice, you know?

[00:50:30] Halfling: Oh yeah. We're good at giving advice.

[00:50:33] Halfling: we're good.

[00:50:36] Russell Sawyer: I'm good at seeking advice. You have to be willing to do that for if you're gonna run a con. You gotta listen to know everybody and get their ideas and thoughts. Cause if it's just you, you're gonna pull your hair out, you're gonna go crazy trying to do it.

[00:50:50] Spaceman: Absolutely.

[00:50:51] Halfling: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:50:52] Russell Sawyer: So far I still have my hair, so,

[00:50:54] Halfling: Well, they 

[00:50:54] Spaceman: you do. You do. 

[00:50:56] Spaceman: And you're just a couple years younger than me, so you're doing good, All right. Well, listeners, we want to thank you today for tuning in and we hope you've enjoyed and perhaps become inspired by today's guest, Russell Sawyer. Russell. We're gonna give you a huge shout out for joining us to talk about your journey in active fandom. This is the Spaceman over and out.